1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector housing supporting therein a connector terminal including at opposite ends thereof a pair of terminals to be inserted into through-holes formed through each of two printed circuit boards located facing each other, to thereby electrically connect the two printed circuit boards to each other. The present invention relates further to an electric connector including the connector housing, and further to a method of inserting a connector terminal into a connector housing.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known an electric connector supporting thereon a plurality of connector terminals in a line. The connector terminals are inserted at one of ends thereof into through-holes formed through a first printed circuit board, and at the other end thereof into through-holes formed through a second printed circuit board, to thereby electrically connect circuits mounted on the first and second printed circuit boards to each other.
FIG. 18 illustrates a pin header 100 suggested in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H7 (1985)-230862.
The illustrated pin header 100 includes a plurality of connector terminals 101, and a connector holder. The connector holder includes a board 104, an upper bar 102 horizontally extending along an upper end of the board 104, a lower bar 103 horizontally extending along a lower end of the board 104, and a plurality of protrusions 105 horizontally aligned at a middle of the board 104. The connector terminals 202 are supported by the upper bar 203 and the lower bar 204. The protrusions 205 are located in gaps formed between the adjacent connector terminals 101 to thereby electrically insulate the adjacent connector terminals 101 to each other.
In an electric connector including a plurality of connector terminals through which printed circuit boards are electrically connected to each other, a positional relation between the printed circuit boards is important. For instance, when connector terminals are inserted at opposite ends thereof into through-holes formed through printed circuit boards, to thereby electrically connect the printed circuit boards to each other, if a positional relation between the printed circuit boards were deflected, the connector terminals might be able to be inserted at one of ends thereof into through-holes of one of the printed circuit boards, but could not be inserted at the other end thereof into through-holes of the other of the printed circuit boards, because axes of the connector terminals are displaced relative to axes of the through-holes. In particular, in the case that a plurality of electric connectors is employed, it is much afraid that some of the connector terminals cannot be inserted into one of the printed circuit boards. Furthermore, if connector terminals were designed to have a smaller cross-sectional area in order to allow the connector terminals to be much resiliently deformable, the connector terminals would allow a less current to pass therethrough.
In the pin header 100 illustrated in FIG. 18, the connector terminals 101 are inserted directly into the printed circuit boards. The connector terminals 101 are fixed by the upper bar 102 and the lower bar 103, and the protrusions 105 merely separate the adjacent connector terminals 101 from each other. Accordingly, if there were deflection in a positional relation between the printed circuit boards, since positions of the connector terminals 101 and a gap between the connector terminals 101 are fixed by the upper bar 102 and the lower bar 103, even if the connector terminals 101 can be inserted into one of the printed circuit boards, the connector terminals 101 would not be able to be inserted into the other of the printed circuit boards.